


a mirage of you and me

by rainingover



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, gratuitous handholding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 23:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13891656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: Jungwoo is a flirt. He’s a shameless, unadulterated, deliberate flirt. Everyone knows it and no one even minds, because not only is Jungwoo a flirt, but he’s a flirt with a heart of gold.Doyoung minds, but only because (and, yeah, he’s ashamed to say it, but whatever, it’s true) he feels this stupid pang of jealousy every time Jungwoo smiles someone else’s way, which isall the damn time.





	a mirage of you and me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naerys123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naerys123/gifts).



> i am also in love with jungwoo, but who isn't?  
> dedicated to @Naerys123 because she mentioned this pairing & i immediately fell for them

Jungwoo is a flirt. He’s a shameless, unadulterated, deliberate flirt. Everyone knows it and no one even minds, because not only is Jungwoo a flirt, but he’s a flirt with a heart of gold.

Doyoung minds, but only because (and, yeah, he’s ashamed to say it, but whatever, it’s true) he feels this stupid pang of jealousy every time Jungwoo smiles someone else’s way, which is _all the damn time._

Jungwoo is a flirt, Doyoung is smitten, and in the soft light of the morning he might as well be a painting - some angelic, cherubic, divine interpretation of heaven - because Doyoung can only look, can only stare and try not to turn twenty shades of red, as Jungwoo licks the cream off the top of his coffee with wide eyes trained on someone else in the room.

There’s a hand in front of his face suddenly. “Earth to Doyoung.” The hand waves back and forth a few times.

It’s Jaeyun.

“Huh?” Doyoung recoils from the waving hand, confused for a moment about where he is: Jungwoo has this ability to distract him from his entire life, not that it’s Jungwoo’s fault, exactly. He has no idea he’s even doing it. 

“Your coffee’s going cold.” Jaehyun takes a bite from his sandwich and raises an eyebrow. He’s only sitting across the bench but he might as well be on another planet. Doyoung feels dizzy, like he’s just been awoken from a thousand year sleep. He hasn't, though. They've all had less than three hours sleep and they're waiting for hair and make-up now, somewhere between exhausted and high on promoting.

“Oh, right.” Doyoung automatically picks up the cup and takes a sip. “My mind’s elsewhere,” he explains, though that much is pretty clear to anyone with two eyes. Jaehyun has two eyes, and those eyes flicker towards Jungwoo, who is smiling prettily at Taeyong in a way that makes Doyoung’s heart flip.

“Elsewhere,” Jaehyun repeats with an inquisitive look. If they were alone Doyoung would punch him on the arm and tell Jaehyun to stop being rude to him, but they’re not, they’re in a cafe next door to the studio today’s photoshoot is being held - a cafe that is pretty busy with the prying eyes of curious outsiders on them too, so Doyoung lets it pass.

\--

Doyoung searches for his name on twitter because he likes embarrassment and he likes suffering, or something like that.

He must do, he must want to suffer, because why else would he be lying awake in the middle of the night, the very little time to rest that he has passing him right on by, and zooming into fansite photos of him giggling at Jungwoo’s aegyo, perfectly ( _so_ damn perfectly) shown off at the fansign the week before?

He zooms in to one photo so closely that he swears he can see the blemish on his chin even through layers of the kind fansite master’s photoshop and then he scrolls the photo upwards so that all he can see on the screen is his eyes. Eyes filled with happiness. Eyes filled with _love._

“Why me?” he whispers into the darkness, and he swears it answers him, “ _why not_?”

Doyoung can’t argue with that.

 

\--

 

They’re still on location for the photoshoot, except the exuberance of the day before has dissipated and now they’re just waiting for it to end. The last day of anything - photoshoots, music video filming, recording - always tends to be this way: the energy in the group melting away little by little as each of them grows more tired, more hungry, more bored.

Doyoung isn’t bored, but he _is_ hungry. So, so hungry. He watches Jungwoo slide his fingers over the shoulders of each jacket on the stylist’s rack. He’s lining up the hangers neatly with pure concentration etched into his face; eyes focused, jaw set. He has nice fingers and he has a divine face. 

Doyoung knows this face well - could write a thesis on said face, if it was asked of him. 

Sometimes, Doyoung challenges himself to choose one favourite feature on Jungwoo’s face. The challenge is to decide, to provide a valid reason and to do this in his head all without anyone asking him what the fuck he looks so intense about.

He fails, this time, Mark sliding into the chair next to him, camera in hand and saying, “Doyoung-hyung? What are you thinking about, huh?”

Doyoung pauses his thoughts - mid way between decided upon nose and lips - and says, “I’m thinking about our NCTzennies.” He pulls a finger heart out of his jacket.

This will make it onto youtube and when Doyoung watches it back, his heart will leap out of his chest like it’s trying to betray him, and he’ll glance at Jungwoo, who is watching the same screen contently across the room, arm around Sicheng’s shoulder, and Jungwoo won’t glance back.

 

\--

 

Jungwoo has Yuta wrapped around his little finger, because of course he does. Yuta is easily enamoured by soft creatures, and Jungwoo flirts with him happily on broadcast. No one bats an eyelid, because that’s just what they _do_. It doesn’t mean anything.

Doyoung knows this, and yet, it still bothers him. And he knows it’s stupid, that it’s unnecessary to replay moments in his mind where Jungwoo is winking at someone else in the room, is wrapping his arms around someone else and leaning his chin on their shoulder and giggling.

Doyoung knows this, but he replays the moments anyway, and wishes, more than anything, that the someone else was always him.

 

\--

 

Doyoung loses a game of kai bai bo and as forfeit is sent to the Starbucks across the road to buy four Americanos and two strawberry Frappes.

“I can’t carry that many,” he protests, but Jaehyun points out that the staff will give him a cardboard carrier, and Yuta tells him to stop being lazy, even though Doyoung knows Yuta would _not_ be going out in the rain to buy coffees if he’d lost the game.

“My hair--” he starts, but no one is listening to him now. He scrunches up his face and roots around in his bag for his wallet. He’d curse if there wasn’t a camera trained on him. There’s _always_ a camera trained on him and sometimes he likes it - embraces it, lives for it (he’s an entertainer, after all) - but sometimes it just makes him feel vulnerable. Trapped.

He pulls out his wallet, smiles brightly as he recounts the order - four americanos and two strawberry frappes, or was it one frappe? - for the camera, the man behind it almost tripping over the foot of one of their managers on the way to the door.

Jungwoo catches up with them in the corridor. Says to the camera, “I’m helping hyung with his task,” and holds up his fist with a lopsided smile. “Fighting, hyung!”

Doyoung can’t help but laugh, because it’s cute and it’s _kind_. And maybe it means that Jungwoo notices him too.

Jungwoo pulls Doyoung’s hood up over his head and says, “Let’s stay dry, hyung,” his fingers brushing Doyoung’s face.

And it’s all for the camera - of course it is - but Doyoung can pretend that it isn’t, and he smiles and says thank you and doesn’t dare look directly at the camera again until he’s sure he isn’t blushing.

Later, once filming is over and coffees are cold and they’re heading back to the dorm for a mere four hours of downtime before the next schedule, Jungwoo says, “Hyung, you know I’ll take care of you, don’t you?”

Doyoung stumbles over a reply and Jungwoo has the decency not to look at him oddly for too long, even after Doyoung has decided he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

Maybe he’s just paranoid, but Doyoung is sure he notices Jungwoo’s eyes on him more after that, and he doesn’t know what to think of it, so he just tries not to think about it at all.

(But that, it turns out, is impossible, and in time all he can do is think about it - about Jungwoo - until he thinks about not much else.)

 

\--

 

Jaehyun corners him in the dorm and says, “Are you worried about having a new vocalist in the group?”

“What?” Doyoung is half dressed and half awake and Jaehyun is looking awfully concerned. It’s jarring.

“I don’t know, I’m just wondering.” He shrugs. “You’re weird about Jungwoo. You weren’t weird about him before he debuted.”

Doyoung swallows. _That’s because I wasn’t in love with him then_ , he thinks.

“I’m not weird about anyone,” he replies.

Jaehyun only looks half convinced.

 

\--

 

Doyoung makes it his mission to not “be weird” about Jungwoo, whatever that means, but it turns out that the only plan he has to do this involves avoiding him at all costs, which is difficult because they’re promoting and Jungwoo is there all of the time.

They do a live stream, and Jungwoo reads every comment from fans about how handsome each member is in a serious tone while staring at them. The amount of hearts the stream receives rocket and the members laugh and clap, and some of them cringe at Jungwoo’s blatant fan service, but in a fond sort of way, because it's impossible not be fond of Jungwoo.

Doyoung refuses to look him in the eyes when Jungwoo does it to him. “Doyoung oppa is handsome today,” he says, in that voice - the one that Doyoung dreams about - and Doyoung coughs into his hand, and it’s awkward. Lucas shouts “Rejection,” so loud it startles Sicheng and they all laugh, and Jungwoo stops joining in then, looks directly at the camera with a soft, melancholy smile, for the rest of the livestream.

Later, when he dares to look in Jungwoo’s direction, Doyoung feels so much guilt he feels like he could be consumed by it, eaten away until he no longer exists.

He can’t bring himself to eat dinner, and he goes to bed complaining of a headache that he doesn’t have. Johnny comes into the room, throws a box of painkillers at his head and says, “Go to sleep,” in a way that sounds firm but Doyoung knows is just caring.

He tries to sleep, but he isn’t that lucky. So, he lies awake and replays the confused look on Jungwoo’s face and tells himself that he’s an asshole over and over until finally sleep takes him away from it all, though only for five hours.

 

\--

 

Jungwoo sits next to him in the car, as though it’s his right to be there, so close, his skin glowing in the sunlight like a picture of absolute perfection. The make up artist has highlighted the shit out of his cheekbones and on someone else it would look too dramatic, but Jungwoo’s looks lend themselves to anything and everything.

His voice is low, his eyebrows pulled in into a cute little frown as he asks, “Are you better?”

Doyoung isn’t sure what he means for a moment, until he remembers: his feigned headache, his desperate fleeing from company, the box of painkillers he didn’t need bouncing onto the pillow next to his head.

“Yes, I’m better.” He tries out a smile. “I’m sorry for, uh--”

“It’s okay,” Jungwoo cuts in. “You were sick.”

“Yeah.” Doyoung nods.

Jungwoo puts a hand on his arm and Doyoung tries not to melt too much into his touch. “Did you take the painkillers I asked Johnny-hyung to take into you?” He asks.

“Why didn’t you bring them?” Doyoung finds himself asking, and then wishes he hadn’t. So much for not being weird.

“Should I have?” Jungwoo tilts his head and his hair slides over one eye. His gaze is intense and it’s paralysing, and Doyoung can only nod.

Jungwoo smiles shyly and says, “You look handsome today, hung," and then he turns away and watches the world pass by out of the window, leaving Doyoung knocked out cold.

Doyoung spends the rest of the car journey in a haze, and when they reach their destination, he works on autopilot for the rest of the day. Greets on autopilot, dances on autopilot, makes hearts with his hands and finds cameras on autopilot, because it’s all he can do not to burst into flames.

On the way back in the car, he sits behind Jungwoo this time, but Jungwoo still turns around in his seat and peers at him gingerly through the tiny gap between the seat and the headrest, until Doyoung laughs and covers the gap with his coat, because it’s too much for his damn heart to take.

 

\--

 

Doyoung isn’t sure what is happening, not really, but something must be.

Jungwoo holds his hand under the table at dinner and it feels like the entire universe is coming alive inside of his chest. His heart is beating at a rate of a million beats per minute - or, at least it feels that way, his mouth won’t fucking stop smiling, and he can’t bring himself to care that he probably looks stupid.

Maybe this is all a dream, he thinks, but his knee hurts so badly when he trips in the practise room that it can’t be.

Except then he spots Jungwoo hand in hand with Yuta at the back of the practise room, and then, later, in the dorm, with Lucas's head resting on his thigh as Jungwoo smiles down at him and plays with his hair absentmindedly, and Doyoung remembers: Jungwoo is a flirt, and that’s okay - that’s cool - or it should be, except he just feels jealous, jealous, jealous _all_ of the goddamn time.

 

\--

Jungwoo is cross-legged on Doyoung’s bed when he returns from the shower a few nights later. Doyoung looks around the room, expecting someone else to be there too, but they’re alone.

Doyoung swallows nerves and busies himself with towelling his hair in the mirror across the room. He wonders how he looks to Jungwoo right now, what Jungwoo thinks of him. “Hey,” he tries to make it come out casually, but the word struggles with his throat and comes out like a question.

Jungwoo doesn’t say hello back, he just says, “Hyung, I’m confused,” and stares at Doyoung’s back until Doyoung feels like he might be on fire.

“By what?” He turns around, giving up on his hair, and drapes the towel over the back of his chair. He feels cold all of a sudden, like he’s been showering in ice water and not the hot, relaxing spray he likes to loosen up under. Cautiously he sits down on the edge of his bed.

Jungwoo doesn’t even blink. “By you.” He rests his chin on his hand, elbow propped up on his knee. There is cleansing lotion around his hairline that he hasn’t washed off his face properly. “Sometimes I think… Maybe… But then…”

Doyoung can’t help but smile, warmed by Jungwoo’s wavering voice. “ _I’m_ confused now.”

“Ah, so we’re both confused.” Jungwoo heaves out a sigh and his shoulders deflate. “I’ve been trying to figure you out. And I think you might be happy to hear this. But if you aren’t, just-- just pretend I was never here, okay, hyung?”

“Okay.”

“I like holding your hand best.” Jungwoo pauses, looking at him with such sincerity Doyoung wants to dive into his eyes and drown there. “I think you might have been wondering.”

So Jungwoo _has_ noticed him. Shit.

“I-- I was, well, I wasn’t wondering.” Doyoung gulps. “I was more-- I was hoping so, I guess,” he admits, looking down at the space between them as Jungwoo reaches into it and softly wraps a hand around his wrist.

It feels like this is what he should be doing, that _he_ should be making a move, a play or whatever people call it. That he should be telling Jungwoo that he’s special, that this is different to anything he’s ever felt, but he can only sit still, hair damp, feet cold, doing nothing.

There’s a shout from the corridor, and Jungwoo’s hand retreats. “I should go to my room,” he says, but he makes no effort to move until the door opens and Mark trudges in, towel around his head.  He drips water as he walks, barely glancing at the scene in front of him. Doyoung guesses maybe he doesn’t look as on edge as he feels. Or, maybe, Mark is just too damn tired to really care.

Jungwoo murmurs goodnight and leaves the room, and it takes Doyoung a whole ten minutes to find the ability to move from the farest edge of his bed.

When he falls asleep, he’s smiling.

 

\--

 

The next time that he sits next to Jungwoo, Doyoung takes a deep breath and conducts his own experiment: one to check that his conversation with Doyoung hadn’t been a mirage of his deepest desires and that it had actually, definitely, happened. He tugs at Jungwoo’s sleeve subtly, until Jungwoo’s hand rests in the gap between them on the sofa, and then, delicately, he intertwines his fingers with Jungwoo’s, and waits to be pushed away.

Jungwoo says nothing, but his cheeks glow pinkish, and he glances sideways at Doyoung with the smallest of smiles, and Doyoung thinks, _thank goodness,_ it had happened after all.

His next experiment, conducted at the back of the practise room a few days later, after everyone else has headed out through the door in search of food, has his heart racing uncontrollably.

He sits on the floor, Jungwoo inches away, hair in his face as he ties his shoelaces. He looks beautiful like this, but then, he always does.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Doyoung asks, as casual as his voice will allow.

Jungwoo pushes his hair from his eyes. “Why don’t you see and find out?” he asks, as if it’s that easy.

Doyoung contemplates this. “Are you going to hit me?” he asks, and he doesn’t mean it, not really, but still, he wants to be certain that this isn’t going to end as badly as it could. Coming on to on your bandmates isn’t exactly a good idea, especially if they aren’t going to reciprocate, and Doyoung has heard the tales of excruciating awkwardness between labelmates and groupmates from misunderstandings like this. He shudders at the thought, because, even after all of this, he still can’t quite believe that Jungwoo wants him back.

“Do I look like I’m going to hit you, hyung?” Jungwoo asks softly, as he moves to close the gap between them until they’re shoulder to shoulder.

Doyoung shakes his head and leans in until their lips meet. The kiss lasts all of ten seconds - anyone could walk back in, and neither Doyoung nor Jungwoo wants to scar anyone for life with their scandal - but it might actually be the best ten seconds of Doyoung’s life to date.

 

\--

 

There’s a tour, five dates across America, and they aren’t rooming together, so every moment alone is exciting and savoured, like the last taste of the best ice-cream - except better, because kissing Kim Jungwoo is pure _bliss._

Doyoung finds Jungwoo in the wardrobe room, lining up hangers neatly. “Should we be in here?” he asks, hovering in the doorway. “We’ll get in trouble, they hate it when we touch the outfits before changing time.”

“No we won’t, they let me in here whenever I want,” Jungwoo says. “I like organising everything. It’s fun.”

Doyoung shuts the door. “What did you do to deserve this privilege?” He asks. And, okay, being alone in a room might not seem like a privilege, really, but when you’re living, and eating, and breathing with multiple other guys twenty four seven _any_ alone time is a privilege.

Jungwoo shrugs. “I was lovable and cute,” he says. He stops touching the hangers and takes Doyoung’s hand.

Doyoung squeezes it tightly. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to it - to being so close to Jungwoo, being allowed to stare, _encouraged_ to stare even (“I like it when you look at me,” Jungwoo had admitted one night, had whispered it oh-so-carefully into Doyoung’s ear with a smile as sweet as candy).

“Ah, you flirted with them,” Doyoung says.

Jungwoo nods. “It’s in my nature,” he says. “It’s who I am.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, but he really doesn’t mind - not one little bit. “You’re definitely something,” he says, grinning as he nudges Jungwoo further into the cave of hangers, of jackets and belts and sequins and leather, where they kiss until Jungwoo gets too concerned that they’re messing up the neat rows of outfits too much.

 

\--

 

Jungwoo declares Taeyong his favourite hung on national television and it spawns a thousand gifs.

He hugs every dream member in succession and calls them his favourites, and tops it all off by falling asleep in Mark’s lap during a particularly sleepy V-live to a chorus of viewer comments calling them the cutest couple and making Mark cringe internally for the entire night.  

Jungwoo is a flirt, but he’s also smitten with Doyoung, and in the soft light of the morning, tip-toeing into the bathroom to kiss under the spray of the shower, Doyoung wouldn’t want him any other way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> is it good? i don't know. i enjoyed writing it though <333


End file.
